Destroy All Humans!: Path of the Furon Review

With respects to the Destroy All Humans! franchise, THQ now represents a freewheeling alcoholic unable to stay away from the bar. A bar at which they finish each shot by slapping the bartender.

In other words, it is high time to take this franchise away from them and never let them touch it again.

Much as Eidos rode Lara Croft into the ground then dug her up only to ride her some more for good, hard, measure, the Destroy All Humans franchise is officially dead and buried. THQ clearly refuses to accept this fact, so they have exhumed the corpse, reanimated it, and sent it forth to the masses expecting… something. I don’t know what. No one who actually plays Path of the Furon can tell you what the developers were thinking other than they all just wanted to punch out at 5 o’clock and go home.

This beast is flat terrible, but not just for the reasons one might immediately think of. Not only does it lack soul, quality writing, a sense of humor, or any of the reasons for playing the series in the first place, but it also has several game breakers that five minutes worth of Q&A would have revealed. But that would have defeated the

Visually, Path of the Furon is a grave disappointment. I could play this thing on the Wii. It still wouldn’t be fun, but at least I would be expected to throw my controller around as part of the gameplay as opposed to rage. Crypto and Pox both look like higher res versions of their old selves, but everything else in the game from the humans to the buildings to the vehicles all look exactly the same as they did in prior games. Let us not forget that was on the last generation of consoles.

Rag doll physics apply to the characters but only when flinging them through the air. I wasn’t sure if that was intentional or not because the technology was better used back in Max Payne 2 and that was ages ago. Regarding vehicles, its like the developers figured the majority of the game would be played from the spacecraft so everything is dull and boring when seen up close. This applies to pretty much everything in the game other than the Man Eating Plant gun, which looks awesome the bigger it grows.

One good thing out of hundreds. Not a good score, THQ.

Aurally, Path of the Furon is a grave disappointment. Grant Albrecht and Richard Horvitz return to the roles of Crypto and Pox but even they can’t salvage this ship. They don’t even try to give it their all either, instead opting to listlessly rattle off whatever drivel was on the script page. The only actor who does make an impression is the one who plays the bimbo reporterette in the second level. I would imagine the point was the make her a Farrah Fawcett knock-off, but in truth she looks exactly like Megyn Kelly which is a whole other thing.

Back to the negatives, unfortunately. The audio has a nasty tendency of either dropping to imperceptible levels or not playing at all. I was unable to repeatedly produce it either, but considering how shoddy the entire mess of a game is it didn’t strike me as worthy of the effort. Sometimes I’d take a mission briefing from Pox and the audio simply wouldn’t play. Or it would play then stop midway through leaving me with subtitles. This is something that Q&A is supposed to find and fix, kids, before the game ships.

Just sayin’.

Control wise, Path of the Furon is about par for the course. The directional and movement controls are standard, and the A button is for jumping and using the jetpack, B stops time, X transmogrifies, and Y snatches a body. Or talks to someone depending on the situation. This is yet another missed opportunity. Imagine for a second if you have to go talk to someone but accidentally snatch their body instead. You could mentally scan your own brain to see if you could pick up what the guy was thinking, and if you only got snippets then you would have to figure out right quick what the guy was supposed to do.

Alas, Path of the Furon is not that game.

The LB and RB buttons see a lot of action here. The RB button is used whenever you shift through your weaponry, and the LB button plus X or Y results in mental scans or mentally distracting the puny humans with Disco Fever

Gameplay wise, Path of the Furon sucks. It goes beyond disappointing for fans of the series because first it rehashes everything the series has done before, then strips out the creativity, the quality writing, a sense of humor, and anything resembling enthusiasm. Instead,

The amount of unholy devastation players can wreck on a city deserves exactly 30 points of value. Hence the score you see listed above. There are no other redeeming values present in this mess of a game. It is filled to the brim with fail, and not recommended at all.

Not even as a rental.

Ron Burke is the Editor in Chief for Gaming Trend. Currently living in Fort Worth, Texas, Ron is an old-school gamer who enjoys CRPGs, action/adventure, platformers, music games, and has recently gotten into tabletop gaming.
Ron is also a fourth degree black belt, with a Master's rank in Matsumura Seito Shōrin-ryū, Moo Duk Kwan Tang Soo Do, Universal Tang Soo Do Alliance, and International Tang Soo Do Federation. He also holds ranks in several other styles in his search to be a well-rounded fighter.
Ron has been married to Gaming Trend Editor, Laura Burke, for 21 years. They have three dogs - Pazuzu (Irish Terrier), Atë, and Calliope (both Australian Kelpie/Pit Bull mixes).